Why So Serious

Gotham city is one of the largest and most congested cities in America. On the outskirts lie a sparsely populated area designated for the few wealthy families of Gotham. These families were all well known in the Gotham community, some more than others. Some of these families would become famously known as contributors to the great city, creators of its foundation. While other families would go down in infamy as tragic victims of the growing darkness that shrouded over parts of Gotham and its people, forever changing its landscape.

One of these families that lived in the outlined area of Gotham had a 10 year old son. It was his birthday today on this bright sunny Gotham day, which was rare for the mostly rainy city. “what would the birthday boy like to do on his special day” a well dressed man said as he walked out of the double glass doors to find his son playing in the football field sized front yard. The mansion was massive two stories high with white columns on either side of the main door that held up a balcony on the second floor. The over sized house had 7 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms; it was a little excessive for a single family with one child. The boy was driving around the front yard in an electric mini car that his father got him the previous year. “What would you and mother like to do today dad?” the boy replied as he drove his mini car up to his father’s feet and stopped. His father smiled at the generosity of his boy.” It’s your day, you get to decide, there is an opera in the city tonight, would you like to go to that?” the father asks with a sly grin knowing what his boy would say. “No thank you, that sounds a bit dull, let’s have a circus theme party” the boy exclaimed as he climbed out of his little green mini car.

The circus theme party was a huge hit, a bunch of kids running around having fun with different color party hats on. Spanning the giant sized front lawn they had huge bouncy castles, donkey rides and little baby goats for the kids to play with. They spared no expense they even had a clown there to entertain the kids. There were colorful tables of full of containers with 10 different refreshment flavors, cupcakes, chicken, mini cheese burgers, and fruit. It was just like a buffet restaurant in Vegas. “So how do you like your party?” that dad asks as he rubs the top of his boy’s head messing up his hair. “The party is great dad, thank you.” “Look at this balloon bat that the clown made for me” the boy beams as he waves the bat up and down to make his wings move. The dad smiles as he looks around, “where is the clown, I haven’t seen him in awhile.” The boy points toward the house “he went inside, he probably had to go to the bathroom.” “I’ll go check on him” The dad says starts walking toward the house with a stern look on his face.

The mansion is enormous, with two entry ways on the left or right and a spiral staircase in the center leading to the upstairs. Everyone at the party is outside but he hears people whispering in the room to the left, the den. He walks steadily toward the room and opens the door; the clown is in the room alone with one of the girls that showed up for the party. As the door opens the clown turns around startled. “Oh I was just making her a balloon animal” the clown stammers quickly before the other man even says anything. The owner of the house walks up to the clown with a snarl of his face like a raging bull and punches him in the face knocking off his red noise with a honking sound. The clown falls to the ground and crawls backwards on the floor like a crab to maneuver away from his attacker. “I ...I swear I wasn’t going to do anything” the clown whines as he slowly gets up. “I think you better leave, while you can still walk.” The man says through his teeth as he grabs the clown by his fluffy collar and leads him to the door.

Later that night the boy wakes up to a blood curdling scream like a goat being kicked. At first he thinks it could have been a dream or just one of the goats outside. Suddenly he hears the crash of a lamp or something heavy hitting the floor and glass breaking. He doesn’t know what to do stay in bed or go out of his room and look. He goes out into the hall and looks down towards his parent’s room where the loud crash came from. As he walks slowly toward their bedroom door he hears a banging noise and a low deep voice in the room that is not his dads. Panic starts to shoot through him like diving into a pool of ice water. He opens the door and light from the hallway shines in to show him the voice he heard. The clown from his birthday party earlier that day was standing over his father, blood was everywhere. The clown turns toward the boy and smiles “ah the birthday boy” he says in a slow creepy voice that should belong to a spider if spiders could talk. The boy just stands there frozen, his eyes locked on the clown’s toothy smile. His body feels numb, he would run but he forgot how or he can’t feel his legs. The clown runs toward the boy standing in the hallway. In a flash of adrenalin the boys legs start to move on as if independently from his brain, instinctually. Halfway down the hall the clown crabs him and they both tumble halfway down the hallway. The clown is much bigger than the boy and manages to roll himself over and pin the boy to the ground. The clowns green colored wig had fallen off in the tussle to reveal long dark stingy hair as it dangled down towards the boys face as the menacing clowns smiley face got closer to the boys face. “Why so serious little boy? It’s your birthday, isn’t it? You should be happy” the clown whispers into the boys face as he slowly brings up a bloody knife. “Let’s see if I can change that” the clown says as he holds the boy down by his face and puts the knife partly into the boy’s mouth and cuts the boys face on one side. The boy screams and struggles to get away. “Hold on boy I am not done yet” the clown says as he puts the knife back in on the other side to cut the same mark on both sides of his mouth to create a permanent smile. “There you go, now you look so happy” the clown says as he raises the knife to plunge it into the boy’s heart. He stops suddenly as he hears movement from the parent’s room. The clown turns to the boy and giggles “sounds like I have unfinished business in your mommies room” he grabs the boys arm and holds it to the floor with one hand while he uses his other hand to stab the knife into the boys hand and into the expensive Oakwood floor. “Stick around kid I will be back for you in a minute.” The clown says as he walks back down the hall towards the mother’s room. The boy is lying on the hallway floor crying and bleeding from his mouth and hand. The pain is tremendous worse than the time he fell off his bike into the sticker bushes. He grabs the knife that is sticking him to the floor with his free hand and with a raging anger he pulls it out. He runs down the hall as fast as he can, screaming the whole way like a wild animal. When he turns the corner he sees the clown on top of his mother choking her as her limp body twitches the last of her life out of her. The clown hears the boy’s screams and turns around just in time to see the boy leap at him like a jungle cat. The boy lands one hand on the clowns white make up covered face while the other hand wielding the knife lands swiftly into the clown’s neck. The boy stabs the knife into the clown’s neck over and over like a woodpecker pecking on a tree.

Red and blue lights flash like strobe lights at a night club while the boy sits on the front steps of his home. Police and medics rush into the home; one officer kneels down to ask the boy if he is ok. All he hears is echoes of her voice as he wipes away tears. His mouth is cut into a ruby red smile of blood and he looks down at his hands and notices that he has the clowns white paint on his hand from when he attacked him. Just then the boy realizes that as he whipped away his tears he had smeared the white clown paint on his own face. The boy with his smeared white face and blood red smile looks up at the officer that is trying to help him and just starts laughing.